Sorry about the very late reply to those very kind words! Thank you very much! Especially Nicholas, since we are all aware of your super-natural skills, man!!! I am not taking these words granted, I just had been extremely busy with work, my mother-in law visiting from Hungary (and whom I actually like, despite her being a mother in law:)), plus it is kind of summertime and like so many of you, I like to get out of the house. And in doing so I happened to go thru some pretty awesome adventures, one of them particularly related to model building! Definitely more on that at the next post!
These days the weather in the Yukon is kinda sucky, so I did labour away at the Airwing.
Well, as usual, I am not making it very easy for myself, but I think the results are worth the Arthritis.....
Continuing with the more complicated types. The ones that need the most scratch-building, and improvising. These are namely the Seakings, Greyhounds and Hawkeyes (and later on the Tomcats).
I have the Greyhound completed, and I figured I got enough to write about, despite the E-2s only being half finished...
HERE ARE SOME POINTERS TO THOSE WHO ARE WISHING TO ACHIEVE A BIT MORE REALISTIC PLANES THAT WHAT THE MANUFACURER PROVIDES:
I think the Trumpy Hawkeye is way better than Tamiya's. On the other hand their Greyhound is pretty bad ( but it's the only one in the market). The engine/main gear pod of the C-2 is garbage. So is the wing, and the vertical stabilizer. All the right parts can be obtained from the E-2s. Picked a very colorful squadron for the Greyhound, and I only noticed the wrong shape of the vertical stabilizer, AFTER I decaled it, so it will remain the incorrect shape. In reality this part is the same as on a Hawkeye.
-I figure WEM did a better job at the photoetch than TOM's, although Tom's main landing gear struts are way more accurate(but I didn't have enough of those).
-The main wheels are from Tamiya, but to get the perfect size wheels for the nose gear I happened to use surplus 1/350 Trumpy Dauntless wheels...
-This is a good time to mention that the C-2's nose gear is arranged differently from that of the Hawkeye!
-The panel lines are a touchy subject in this scale I think. Just like I don't think that the flightdeck should have "anti-skid texture", neither should the airplanes have panel lines in 1/350. Not to the Trumpeter effect, anyway. For this reason I used the radardishes for the E-2s from Tamiya. I should have filled those lines in on the wings as well, but to be honest: I got lazy....
-on the leading edges I made sure I made the black leading edge boots seem like they are 3 pieces, not just one black line. I used thin decal lines again to "separate" them, just like I how had been using that trick for the window frames.
-Don't forget about wire-antennas and other details hanging off these planes! And the copper coating on the side windows on the Hawkeye. I lucked out and managed to make it, so it is see-tru from the side, but copper from any other angle. Pure luck....
I think this is all I can think of to point out. I hope you guys like what I did with the subject. Of course the photos bring out a lot of mistakes, this is how I noticed some of them, so I got to back to fixing stuff up.....
Another thing that I could have done differently: painting both TOP and bottom of the ailerons white. But I found enough photos showing the top grey, so I didn't correct it....
I finished another Seaking too (well 99% complete) and I also found one of my old Seakings from my Enterprise from like 12 years ago.....
Well, I hope you guys will like the tiny little planes the way I finished them. I also hope everyone is having an awesome summer. I am sure you all are because aside from Doug and Jim, everyone's project have slowed waay down:) mine too though
Cheers: Laci
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I have been so inspired by all the way awesome carriers here that I have got my own Nimitz on its way 
